The Missing Ingredient nature
Time s relationship with food is multifaceted and complex extending far beyond the right cooking times for dishes As a cooking school grad and a professional cook for a number of yearsthe title of this book was intriguing In a world that sees instant as good time needs to be reintroduced into our routines and Jenny Linford s book is a welcome edition for new cooks and seasoned chefs I was pleasantly surprised at how well rounded the prize is However it is what it is with no apologies and therefore may see a small audience Edelweiss allowed me to read an early copyand I voluntarily reviewed it 329 An interesting thematic approach to writing about food that was informative and enjoyable at times However the simplistic division of chapters by units of time e. The Missing Ingredient nature Seconds Minutes made for clunky and repetitive reading Over the course of the book I felt like I was reading the same tidbits of information from previous essays Perhaps the flow of the book could be better improved if there were subdivisions within each chapter 329 This book is a quick read unique in that it separates short bite sized stories about food and drink into sections based on the time the products take to cook or create There are sections for seconds minutes hours days weeks months years and centuries which is a fun construction That said reading this I became keenly aware of how impossible it really is to separate food out in time this way Sure it takes years for a cow to mature but it takes months to age a carcass and minutes to cook a steak Every food could technically apply to every time which made the fun structure feel a bitpurposeless I suppose the fact I came to this realization is in itself a victory Another note While I liked reading all of the little windows into different products there were so many of them over the course of the book that it was almost information overload I doubt many of these interesting facts will stick with me but I still enjoyed the ride 329 If you enjoy a quick read about food in weekend newspapers you ll love The Missing Ingredient It s enticingly dippable intoable and also a relaxing read to savour and take your time over Everyone will find something of interest about their favourite food There s an abundance of potted histories anecdotes explanations and expert tips that kindle enthusiasm for discovery and rediscovery in the markets and shops and experimentation in the kitchen We take brief tours with diverse producers who have restored the time that industrial food production has saved guided by an expert author with a wonderful eye ear and nose for detail and vivid descriptions enthusing about their contentment and dedication Providing answers to food and drink questions I both knew and didn t know I had this book also makes a delightful reference and recipe book although the index isn t quite up to the task of searching by topic preferring to list people s nameswhich is fine if you can remember in 6 months time not only that there was some advice about choosing Spanish ham but also the name of the man who said it Some of the encounters seem very brief especially in the Years section towards the end I d happily read a few pages in detail on each of them 329 The material is very interesting but the organization occasionally jumps around at a distracting pace The author kept up the focus on time in food until we entered into weeks months etc And by then it was sort of an afterthought until we got back into years The author would spend time on one topic that seemed perhaps less impactful then go on to write half a page on what I would argue as important topics Only one page was given to discuss the preservation power of sugar two pages for olive oil and then 5 whole pages for cooking eggs Still an essential read if you re someone interested in making anything that takes time 329 
A mouth watering educative book feels like reading a beautifully filmed documentary A guide throught different tecniques and foods with their required time as a compass Packed with palpable descriptions and interesting facts I d love to tell anyone that would listen I was having so much fun didn t even realise I was learning 329 I appreciate the intent of the book to explore as it says on the tin time as an essential not missing however overlooked perhaps ingredient in food of all kinds The execution of the idea isn t quite what I expected It s one of those books that is simply not well suited to audio format I m not docking it for that just pointing the matter out To use a culinary metaphor it s not a multi course meal soup to nuts in a coherent order it s a flight of tapas suitable to be dipped into at random One reason I am docking the book a bit is that a number of the essays herein and really what this is is a collection of very loosely connected essays barely nod at the theme of the book Many of them were along the lines of well I have some interesting research here which could fit if the reader is very generous in it goes Obviously my generosity ran out fairly quickly. Missing ingredient in old man's recipe The reason I ultimately quit so near the end is that I simply got tired of the author s prevailing attitude of tut tut look at the food plebians eat It s all so plebian and inferior Why do they eat that when for only five to a hundred times money they could be eating REAL artisan food Silly plebians How banal of us to have to budget both money and time so boringly to allow for things like utility bills and a forty plus hour work week How stupid of us to buy meat from the grocery store instead of the non existent butcher How absurd of us to just accept the inferior corn or beer or bread that is all that is available to us How ridiculous to not take hours to do what can be done in minutes Just for fun here s a comparison of plebian chocolate versus the chocolate explored by this author prices derived from today s listings Hershey s Chocolate box of 36 1. The Missing Ingredient ebook free 25 ounce Gosh yes why DOESN T everyone just buy the good stuff 329 I don t remember how I came across this book could have been through Gastropod but I thought it sounded like just my thing Time as an ingredient makes a lot of sense when you consider it And overall Linford does look at some interesting points in connecting food with time I learned a few things and was encouraged in my love of cooking and food However this book turned out to be not quite what I expected On reflection I think I was expecting something like Michael Pollan s Cooked where he meditates on particular ways in which fire or air or whatever have an impact on cooking and food at length This is not that Instead this is a long series of vignettes Some of them do go over pages there s a good few pages on pickles and on smoking and the wonders of freezing. Missing ingredient botw among others But in general each topic within each timeframe seconds minutes hours days weeks months years is relatively short addressing the connection between the topic and time the seconds between different stages of caramel the time it takes to make true traditional Modena balsamic vinegar and usually not going into the depth that my heart really wanted And sometimes the topics chosen in each chapter seem to be tangential to the concept of time as an ingredient but maybe I missed the point If what you re interested in is a series of short stories about time and cooking that you can easily dip into and out of that are sometimes amusing and sometimes poignant and that remind you that cooking and good food are good things then you will probably enjoy this book 329 This was educational and fun Linford presents essays of varying length though all short on different foods and related culinary technologies practices organized by the amount of time it takes to properly prepare it It covers a surprising breadth of culinary techniques ingredients technologies and much though somewhat at the cost of depth I particularly liked the essays where she speaks to relevant local producers and specialists which she does for a lot of the essays adding her own perspective to the information given But while each essay is a wonderful toe dipper the book s central theme did not impress me as much The running idea connecting all the essays seems to be that time plays a crucial role in preparing food and adding flavour to it and that different time periods are useful for different things WhichI mean Yeah The other idea nuanced and interesting to me was that good food is worth spending the time on and there can be no industrialized short cuts to quality Linford returns to this frequently and is clearly an advocate of artisan and local food But any discussion on the quality of artisan food would be improved by a discussion on their accessibility both in terms of availability and price points I have no doubt that products made with time and care are rewarding and Linford makes the case very well But I would like to read next on how such food can be made available readily 329 I kept wanting the chapters to actually be about seconds minutes etc in cooking it wasn t the book I was expecting and the title is misleading 329 The Missing Ingredient is about what makes good food and the first book to consider the intrinsic yet often forgotten role of time in creating the flavours and textures we love. The missing ingredient in self care Written through a series of encounters with ingredients producers cooks shopkeepers and chefs exploring everything from the brief period in which sugar caramelises or the days required in the crucial process of fermentation to the months of slow ripening and close attention that make a great cheddar or the years needed for certain wines to reach their peak Jenny Linford shows how time and again time itself is the invisible ingredient From the patience and dedication of many food producers in fields and storehouses around the world to the rapid reactions required of any home cook at the hob this book allows us to better understand our culinary lives The Missing Ingredient The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavour.